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El jubilate

Introduction

Flecha served several noble patrons, particularly the Duke of Calabria in Valencia, and is best known for his ensaladas – mixtures, or ‘salads’, of related texts and musical fragments on a given subject, and often making use of pre-existing material. This genre is of course closely related to the ‘programme’ chansons of Janequin.

Rejoice in the Lord, all the earth:
sing and exult and play the cithera.
Let there be a thousand pleasures here, Amen.
Yes, I tell you,
because of the baby that is born tonight in Bethlehem.
O great good, through whom one may say:
‘He wanted it for me, mother.’
Where did such good come from? Through the protected Virgin
who, when she was born, said to original sin:
‘French fool, let me go,
for I am the child of a good marriage.’
The devil, who heard it, was afraid,
for he could not believe that that which a woman lost,
we could recover through a woman.
‘Yes, it can be so, Sir Knight!’
Oh, what a good song!
‘The bad year was better for the crafty one,
how one and all are with him, tra la la,
for he is a hairy great thief, tra la la!’
In the city of Glory where the Seraphim are,
in the middle of them all,
fell a wicked one, dancing to the tra la la.
The glutton terrified me,
for he swallowed our first parents down his throat.
Oh fools! Don’t you see that the holy Virgin
said to Lucifer:
‘Do not do it, knight, do not do such villainy,
for I am the daughter of the God of Abraham,
the supreme Lord.’
Oh my soul! The cursed one replied:
‘No longer will I eat them up!’
Yes, by my body!
Here I see how you will dance to the tra la la!
‘Leap and dance with cries and shouts!’
And you give up, cursed serpent!
The blessed Virgin will make you dance to the tra la la.
And she will bruise your head. Alleluia.